Over a course of two weeks at the end of May and the beginning of June, I had the good fortune to take a class on international trade, focusing on China and the WTO, in Beijing. Naturally, I brought back many pictures, and I’ve written the trip, as reflected in the pictures, in nine parts at my blog. Not all of my reactions and reflections about China are expressed in the write ups, because there was just so much. Still, if you’re interested in what I do have up, please visit:
- UIBE
- Beijing in General
- Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City
- The Great Wall
- Clubbing
- Food
- Farewell Banquet
- Hanging Out
- Post Script
Enjoy!
Outstanding food photos. I want that plate of cut-up duck. Do you eat the head, or is it a decoration?
Lex, I believe it was just decoration, but it would not be an occasion for surprise should someone actually gnaw at it.
“it would not be an occasion for surprise should someone actually gnaw at it.”
There were Cantonese with you?
Indeed there were Cantonese among us. But they were Americanized Cantonese, so the beer was more appealing than the duck head.
ABCs? How did Chinese-Chinese in Beijing react to Chinese-Americans who don’t read or write (or speak) Mandarin Chinese? Or did everyone in your group speak Mandarin? Most of our Cantonese friends over here don’t, that’s why I’m asking. But that’s not confined to Americanized Cantonese, is it? Hell, my wife’s aunt from Taichung still speaks with a nearly unintelligible accent in Mandarin.
I always think of my wife when I read the title of your site becuase she came here when she was 11. Elementary education in a Taiwan still under martial law put some very Chinese (i.e. non-American) ideas in her head, but going to high school in the US erased a lot of that, too. At home in Taiwan, she spoke Mandarin to her Tsingtao-born father, and Taiwanese to her mother’s family. She speaks English without an accent, but she insists on Chinese-only with our kids, and nothing makes her more angry than 1st generation immigrants who can’t speak Chinese. So she is neither at home in groups of all Mainland or all Taiwanese, nor in the FOB or ABC communities, nor in an all-American millieu (especially my Southern flavor of America), so she truly is caught between worlds.
Yeah, mostly ABCs. The Mandarin-speakers were all born in Taiwan. My experience growing up is a little different from your wife’s. I came to the States when I was 6, so there isn’t as much “Chineseness”, but there’s enough language ability, and respect and appreciation for my heritage. I don’t really fit in with any of the various Chinese communities either. In fact, I find that “mainstream” American society tends to be much more tolerant of the variegated heritage. Hence, the title of my blog.